Former UN Ambassador To Be Nominated for ICC Assembly Presidency

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced that it will nominate Estonian Ambassador Tiina Intelmann as a candidate to be President of the Assembly of member states of the ICC for the next three-year term.

Intelmann currently serves as the Estonian ambassador to Israel and non-residing ambassador to Montenegro. Her nomination is to be approved at the meeting of the ICC Assembly starting in New York on December 12, 2011.

“Estonia participated in the discussions on creating an international criminal court in Rome back in 1998 and was a founding member of the court,” Foreign Minister Urmas Paet noted, commenting the decision. “In the years following the creation of the court Estonia has continued to actively reinforce the court’s role," said Paet. Estonia is also represented in the court’s budgetary committee.

Tiina Intelmann graduated from Leningrad State University with a degree in Italian and French. She entered the foreign service in 1991. From 1995 to 1998 she worked at the permanent representation to the UN. Until 2002 she served as the Estonian ambassador to the OSCE in Vienna and from 2003 to 2005 as the Foreign Ministry undersecretary for political and press affairs. In 2005 she was posted as the Estonian ambassador to the UN in New York.

The ICC, based in The Hague, has jurisdiction over cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The ICC begins proceedings when domestic courts are not able to or do not wish to put the perpetrators of these crimes on trial. The court may also begin proceedings at the request of the UN Security Council. The court’s 18 judges and prosecutors are selected by the member states.

Intelmann would be the first woman to lead the assembly of 116 member states.